Carding control system



Mayl7, 1966 M. E. MAYNARD ET AL 3,251,093

CARDING CONTROL SYSTEM Filed July 5, 1963 4 Sheets-Sheet l INVENTORS MARVIN E.MAYNARD BYMARION F.McALlSTER M n M ATTORNEY May n17, 1966 M. E. MAYNARD ET AL 3,251,093

GARDING CONTROL SYSTEM 4 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed July 5, 1963 INVENTORS MARVIN E. MAYNARD BYMARION F. McALlSTER ATTORNEY May .7117, 1966 MAYNARD ET AL 3,251,093

CARDING CONTROL SYSTEM 4 Sheets-Sheet 5 Filed July 5, 1963 INVENTORS MAYNARD .McALISTER Fla-4- ATTORNEY Mayl'l, 1966 v MAYNARD ETAL 3,251,093

CARDING CONTROL SYSTEM Filed July 5, 1963 4 Sheets-Sheet 4 I"LL78 8 QIOI 573 75 69 Ll L2 INVENTORS MARVIN E. MAYNARD BXMARION F. MCALISTER ATTORNEY United States Patent 3,251,093 CARDING CONTROL SYSTEM Marvin E. Maynard, Spartanhurg, and Marion F. McAlister, Laurens, 8.6., assignors to Deering Milliken Research Corporation, Spartanburg, 8.0., a corporation of Delaware Filed July 5, 1963, Ser. No. 293,584 2 Claims. (Cl. 19-.26)

This invention relates generally to carding systems for fibers and more particularly to'a control system to shut down the carding system upon the occurrence of some abnormal condition in the carding system. 1

The textile industry has for years attempted to increase the efiiciency and speed of continuous carding systems but up to this time has not been able to substantially increase the production of such systems without decreasing the quality of the sliver produced and increasing the chances of injury to the operator and of damage to the carding machine. It is obvious that at high speeds the occurrence of an abnormal condition in the carding system such as a smash up or'the accidental entrance of foreign material into the carding machine can cause the carding machine to be severely damaged before the operator can stop the machine and correct the abnormal condition. In this day and time this is a more serious problem than it was years ago since one operator may be operating numerous machines and very conceivably will not immediately notice the abnormal condition of any one carding machine.

It-is therefore.v an object of the invention to provide a continuous carding system in which the desired essential components of the system will be shut down upon the occurrence of an abnormal condition in the system.

As previously stated the chances of injury to the operator of the carding machine are also increased as the speed of the carding system is increased. It can be seen that if an operator accidentally got an arm, finger, clothing, etc. caught in the carding machine that he would have less time to extract the entangled object due to the increased speed of the machine.

A second object of the invention, therefore, is to provide a high speed carding system which provides maximum'safety to the operator.

A still further problem that exists is that the quality of the sliver produced by carding systems decreased as the speed of the system was increased. In other words, qualiof controls for carding systems which in combination allow the carding system to be operated at substantially ty of sliver produced was sacrificed in order to obtain 7 maximum production.

A third object of the invention is to provide a high speed carding system which produces sliver of a quality comparable to that produced from a carding system operat ing at much slower speeds.

A still further object of the invention is to provide a high speed carding system which produces a high quality sliver with minimum risk to the carding machine and the operator.

Another object of the invention is to provide a combination mechanical-electrical control system for a high speed carding system which will shut down essential components of the system upon the existence of abnormal conditions at a plurality of critical positions in the system.

A sixth object of the invention-is to provide controls on the lap roll, the feed roll, the doffer, at the trumpet, and at the coiler, each of which can independently shut higher speeds without injury to the equipment or the operator and produce high quality sliver.

Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent as the specification proceeds to describe the invention with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which;

IGURE 1 is a schematic perspective view of the high speed carding machine with associated controls;

FIGURE 2 is a vertical partially schematic, sectional view of the high speed carding machine shown in FIG- URE l;

FIGURE 3 is a blown-up view of the lap roll support and control shown in FIGURE 2; 7

FIGURE 4 is a top schematic view of the high speed carding machine;

FIGURE 5 is a blown-up sectional view taken on line 55 of FIGURE 4;

FIGURE 6 is an enlarged view showing in detail the dofier smash up control shown in FIGURE 2;

FIGURE 7 is' a simplified control circuit showing the electrical hook-up of the electronic controls.

Looking now to the drawings a card machine, generally designated as 10, is shown with a main cylinder 12 which receives fiber F from a conventional type licker-in 14. Fibers F from the lap 16 are supplied to the licker-in 14 through conventional lap roll 18 and feed roll 26. The fibers F are removed from the main cylinder 12 by a slower moving dotfing cylinder 22 rotating in a direction opposite to'the direction of rotation of the main cylinder. From the dolter cylinder 22 the fibers F are directed through a pair of peeler rolls 2 3 and delivered to the coiler 24 through a highly polished trumpet 2'5 and girt calen der rolls 26, 28 wherein the sliver is coiled. The fiber from the trumpet 25 and calender rolls 26, 28 is in the form of sliver of approximately one inch in diameter.

Partially surrounding the upper portion of the main cylinder 12 there is provided a conventional endless chain of flats generally indicated at 30 to comb and align the fibers F in the main cylinder 12 in a manner well known in the art.

Looking particularly at FIGURES l and 4 the main cylinder 12 is shown as being driven directly from the card drive motor 32 through pulley 34, endless belt 36, and pulley 37 connected to the main cylinder drive shaft 38. Another pulley 40 located on the opposite end of the drive shaft 38 is belted by belt 41 to pulley 45 on the drive shaft 42 to drive the licker-in 14. In turn the lickerin 14 is belted by endless belt 43 to the split pulley 44, to

be described hereafter, to drive the dolier 22, peeler rolls 23, calender rolls 26, 28 and the coiler 24 through a suitdown selected components of the system in response to an able gear train 46. The doller 22 in turn drives thefeed roll 20 through gear member 47 secured to the dofier shaft 48. .The rotation of gear member 46 is transmitted through gears 50, 52, and 53 to feed r'oll shaft 54. Gear member 56' mounted on the feed roll shaft 54 drives the lap roll 18 through suitable gear members 58 and 69.

As previously described when operating at higher card ing speeds it is essential that the carding machine include protective devices to stop the machine in case of some abnormal condition in order to protect the machine and the operator. In the preferred embodiment of the invention a mechanical stop motion device to control the feed roll 20 only is combined with an electrical control which shuts down operation'ofthe coiler 24, dofier 22, feed roll 20, and lap roll 18 by deactivating a solenoid valve 62 which controls air motor 64 to move the endless belt 43 onto the free wheeling pulley member 66 on the split pulley 44. As can readily be seen when the belt 43 is moved onto the free wheeling pulley member 66 there is no drive con- Patented May 17, 1966 nection to the dofier 22 and the components of the carding machine driven thereby.

The mechanical control for the feed roll 26 shown in detail in FIGURE allows the gear member 53 driven from doffer gear 47 to rotate freely on the feed roll shaft 54 when a pre-determined excess torsional force is placed on the feed roll shaft 54. When the pre-determined excess torsional force, caused possibly by a piece of metal or other debris entering the feed roll 29, is exerted on the shaft 54- the shear pin 68 securing the gear member 53 to the feed roll shaft 54 will shear thereby allowing gear 53 to rotate freely on the feed roll shaft resulting in the cessation of rotation by the feed roll and the lap roll 18. To insure that any excess force on the feed roll 20 is transmitted directly to the shear pin 68, feed roll 2%) is locked into position by suitable members 55 engaging the feed roll shaft 54 as shown schematically in FTGURE 4,

to prevent all movement of feed roll 20 other than rotary.

The operator then safely can remove the cause of the excess torsional stress on the feed roll shaft, replace the sheared shear pin, and put the carding machine back into operation.

The supply end of the carding machine 10 is further protected by a control device operably associated with the lap 16 and the lap roll 18. Shown in detail in FIGURES 2 and 3, the lap 16 at both ends is supported in a notch in the side support plates 72. As the fiber from the roll 16 is supplied to the carding machine the shaft 74 of the lap 16 will be lowered in the notch 70 as the diameter of the lap decreases. When the lap is or is almost dissipated the shaft 74 will be in the dotted line position (FIGURE 3) engaging the contact arm 76 of the micro-switch 78 and opening said switch. Looking at FIGURE 7 it can be seen that the opening of micro-switch 78 de-energizes the circuit to the solenoid valve 62 causing the air cylinder 64 to move the belt 53 onto the idler pulley 66 thereby disengaging the drive for the doffer 22, peeler rolls 23, coiler 24, feed roll 20, and the lap roll 18.

The air cylinder arrangement as shown in FIGURE 7 basically consists of an air cylinder 64 in which piston member 65 reciprocates to move fork like member 67 in and out to slide belt 43 onto and off idler pulley 66. As shown, solenoid valve 62 is energized and reversing valve 69 is in the position where air from source 71 is being supplied to conduit 73 and maintains the piston member 65 in the extreme left position maintaining the belt 43 in operative position. Conduit 75 is open to the atmosphere through reversing valve 69. When any of the microswitches 78, 98, 104, or 110 are disengaged, solenoid valve 62 will be tie-energized causing the reversing valve 69 to reverse position putting conduit 75 in communication with air source 71 and conduit 73 in communication with the atmosphere. The pressure of air in conduit 75 will then push piston 65 to the right thereby sliding belt 43 riding in fork like member 67 onto the idler pulley 66. When the disengaged switch is re-engaged the solenoid valve 62, reversing valve 69, and piston 65 will all again resume the position shown in FIGURE 7.

If desired start-stop-jog manual or automatic switches may be wired into the control system so that the operator can manually override any of the herein disclosed control devices. Such switches are well known in the art and do not fall within the scope of this invention.

For the purpose of disclosure the herein described control devices are assumed to be in closed position when the carding machine is running. This assumption is only for the purpose of illustration since other control circuits and control devices can be employed within the scope of the invention.

Electrically tied in series with the aforementioned lap roll control is the smash up preventing control generally designated shown in detail in FIGURE 6. it is well known in carding systems that some fiber on the doffer will by-pass the peeler rolls 23 and continue on the circumference of the doffer and be carried around until it runs into the fiber on the cylinder 12, which is being picked up by the dotfer at 82. If there is a fairly large accumulation of such fiber on the dofi'er a smash up may occur at point 82, causing severe damage to the doifer 22 and the cylinder 12, especially to the wire clothing thereon. This is an extremely acute problem with high speed carding systems since the amount of fiber per unit time being processed is greatly increased.

A roll 8-4 covered with any suitable material such as wool is provided above the peeler rolls 23 extending across and closely adjacent the dotfer 22 to pickup any of the fiber that by-passes the peeler rolls 23. Roll 84 is journaled in square Teflon bearings 86 slidably mounted in rectangular slots 88 formed by support members 90 secured to the carding machine frame. A counter-weighted blade member 92 is pivotally secured above roll 84 with edge 94 thereof resting on the roll 84. The use of Teflon bearings negates the possibility of getting oil on the dotler since such bearings are substantially self lubricating.

In operation the roll 84 continuously picks up the bypassed fibers and builds up a layer of fibers on the roll. As the roll diameter increases due to the continued pick up of fibers, the counterweight blade member 92 is rotated upwardly about its pivot point 96. When the roll 84 has picked up a pre-determined amount of fiber, the blade member 94 will have been rotated to a position Where it engages the micro-switch 98 and (looking at FIGURE 7) breaks the circuit to the solenoid valve 62 causing the air cylinder to slide the belt 43 into the idler pulley 66 deactivating the drive to the doffer 22 and all the carding machine components driven therefrom. The operator then can clear the roll 84 and the blade member 92 will then rotate back into operative position, the solenoid valve 62 will then be energized and the air cylinder will then slide the belt 43 back into operative position on the pulley 44 to put the dotfer and components driven therefrom back into operation.

It is readily seen that this smash up preventor control automatically discontinues the operation of the desired components of the carding system regardless of whether the operator is present or not. In high speed carding, this type of control is essential because the doffer and the cylinder can be severely damaged before the operator notices or can clear the by-passed fiber from the dofier. Further, versus lower speed carding systems, the accumulation of such by-passed fiber is tremendously increased due to the increased speed of the system. This protective device in combination with the other protection devices disclosed herein is necessary to allow high speed carding.

Trumpet 25 pivotally mounted in any suitable manner between the peeler rolls 23 and the girt calender rolls 26, 28 is very highly polished to reduce the friction inherently present when the trumpet presses the fibers from the dofier together in a manner to develop sufficient cohesion to allow the strand to be placed properly into the coiler can 24. The high polish of the trumpet 25 is essential to high speed continuous carding operation since it substantially reduces the friction encountered in the normal trumpet in the normal carding systems. The orifice in the trumpet 25 is normally sized to handle the maximum anticipated grain weight sliver to be produced. It has been found that for lower grain weight sliver that the trumpet 25 does not have to be replaced with a trumpet with a smaller size orifice. This eliminates the necessity of replacing trumpets every time it is desired to produce a different grain weight sliver.

To ensure a proper supply of fiber to the trumpet 25 and the coiler 24 and in order to maintain quality of the sliver the trumpet 25 is pivotally mounted and counterweighted by counterweight 100. In normal operating position (FIGURE 2) the trumpet 25 will be pivoted to a position adjacent the calender rolls 26, 28. If the supply of fibers to the trumpet should lessen the weight of the trumpet 25 plus the weight of the contact arm 102 will tend to rotate the trumpet towards the micro-switch 104. When the quantity of fibers from the dotfer 22 reaches a pre-determined minimum the trumpet 25 will pivot to the position shown in dotted lines in FIGURE 1 and the contact arm 102 will engage and break the microswitch 104 contacts thereby deenergizing the solenoid valve 62 causing the air cylinder 64 to slide the belt 43 into the idler pulley 66. When the belt 43 has been slid onto the idler pulley 66 the doifer and all of the carding system components driven therefrom will be disconnected from the drive and will be rendered inoperative. The operator can then correct the condition causing the lessened flow of fibers to the trumpet without injury to himself. Further, the trumpet control automatically prevents the flow of sliver to the coiler of undesired quality. To put the carding machine back into operation, the operator can either employ manual override controls (not shown) or pivot the trumpet back manually to energize the micro-switch 104. The sliver is then fed through the girt calender rolls 26, 28 where it is further compressed into a strand of approximately an inch in diameter. From the calender rolls the sliver passes over a rotatably mounted guide member 106 and. is coiled within the coiler can 24.

In order to provide proper operation of the girt calender rolls and the coiler 24 a pro-determined tension must be maintained on the sliver 108 between the coiler and the calender rolls to obtain the desired quality of yarn. Further, if the sliver 108 should break or separate and the operator was off at some other position it is obvious that a great deal of sliver could be wasted. To maintain the pre-determined tension of the sliver the guide member is rotatably mounted in operative relationship with a switch member 110 which is electrically connected to the solenoid valve 62. In operation, if the proper tension is maintained the guide member is rotated and switch member 110 is maintained in energizing position. If for some reason the tension of the sliver 108 should fall below a pre-determined minimum the guide member 106 automatically will rotate in the opposite direction and break switch member 110 thereby de-energizing the solenoid valve 62 causing the air cylinder to slide belt 43 onto idler pulley 66. As before, the doffer 22 and all carding system components driven thereby will then be disengaged from the drive motor 32 and be rendered ineffective. When the proper tension between the girt calender rolls and the coiler 24 has been restored the guide automatically will rotate into operating position thereby causing switch member 110 to energize the solenoid valve 62 to put the carding system back into full operation.

It is obvious that we provided a continuously operating carding system capable of high speed operation due to the automatic protection afiorded by our herein disclosed electromechanical control system. The herein described control system protects both the operator and the essential components of the system from damage in case of some failure in the system. This overall control system is essential for high speed carding systems because of the amount of material being handled per unit time. In slow speed carding systems the operator could normally handle any abnormal condition occurring since the amount of material being handled is considerably less. As an example of the increase of operational speed we can obtain we can take a carding machine producing approximately 10- 12 lbs. per hour of sliver and increase the production of such sliver to approximately lbs. per hour safely and obtain as good or better quality sliver. It is conceivable that we can obtain even higher production and it can readily be seen that the herein described control system is necessary to protect the overall system at these high operating ranges.

It is within the scope of the invention to provide further controls, automatic or manual, and to stop operation of different components of the system depending on the particular drive combination employed.

Although we have described in detail the preferred embodiment of our invention, one contemplates that many changes may be made without departing from the scope or spirit of our invention, and We desire to be limited only by the claims.

We claim:

11 In a carding system comprising a frame, a doir'er cylinder rotatably supported in said frame, a fiber takeoff means supported adjacent said doifer cylinder to takeoff fiber therefrom, a roller member rotatably mounted in slidably supported rectangular bearings adjacent said doffer circumferentially from said fiber take-01f means in the direction of rotation, means pivotally supporting a blade member adjacent said roller member with one edge thereof resting on said roller, and switch means operably associated with said blade member, said switch means stopping the operation of certain preselected components" of the carding system when the fiber by passing said takeoff means has accumulated on said roller to cause said bearings and said roller member to slide outwardly away from said doffer cylinder causing said blade member to pivot into the position where it actuates said switch means.

2. The structure of claim 1 wherein said bearings are Teflon.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 493,870 3/ 1893 Lawry 19-24 556,872 3/ 1896 Thompson 19--105 867,131 9/ 1907 Haselden 226l1 1,014,042 1/1912 Brady 192 4 1,450,044 3/ 1923 Morris 192 1,612,581 12/1926 Holden 19-105 1,727,285 9/ 1929 Gullung 1925 3,092,875 6/ 1963 McLean 19-23 FOREIGN PATENTS 1,749 1857 Great Britain. 683,212 11/1952 Great Britain.

DONALD w. PARKER, Primary Examiner.

D. NEWTON, Assistant Examiner. 

1. IN A CARDING SYSTEM COMPRISING A FRAME, A DOFFER CYLINDER ROTATABLY SUPPORTED IN SAID FRAME, A FIBER TAKEOFF MEANS SUPPORTED ADJACENT SAID DOFFER CYLINDER TO TAKEOFF FIBER THEREFROM, A ROLLER MEMBER ROTATABLY MOUNTED IN SLIDABLY SUPPORTED RECTANGULAR BEARINGS ADJACENT SAID DOFFER CIRCUMFERENTIALLY FROM SAID FIBER TAKE-OFF MEANS IN THE DIRECTION OF ROTATION, MEANS PIVOTALLY SUPPORTING A BLADE MEMBER ADJACENT SAID ROLLER MEMBER WITH ONE EDGE THEREOF RESTING ON SAID ROLLER, AND SWITCH MEANS OPERABLY ASSOCIATED WITH SAID BLADE MEMBER, SAID SWITCH MEANS STOPPING THE OPERATION OF CERTAIN PRESELECTED COMPONENTS OF THE CARDING SYSTEM WHEN THE FIBER BY PASSING SAID TAKEOFF MEANS HAS ACCUMULATED ON SAID ROLLER TO CAUSE SAID BEARINGS AND SAID ROLLER MEMBER TO SLIDE OUTWARDLY AWAY FROM SAID DOFFER CYLINDER CAUSING SAID BLADE MEMBER TO PIVOT INTO THE POSITION WHERE IT ACTUATES SAID SWITCH MEANS. 